roccoschili Chapter 12 Waiting for the Right Opportunity
Chapter 12 Waiting for the Right Opportunity
February of the 47th year of the Wanli reign.
Winter in Jinan Prefecture seems exceptionally long. Although it is early spring, the air is still filled with a biting chill.
However, in stark contrast to the cold weather, the public sentiment throughout northern Ming Dynasty was as fervent as a blazing summer fire.
In the streets and alleys, in teahouses and taverns, people talked about only one thing—the Liaodong war.
"Have you heard? The imperial court has assembled an army of 470,000! 470,000! There are over a thousand military officers of the rank of captain or above!"
"Of course! They also have a combined force from the Yehe tribe and Korea to help them. That Nurhaci is just a savage chieftain from a mountain valley; he's probably going to wet his pants this time!"
"Hey, my second uncle works in the Ministry of War. I heard that the Emperor has really gone all out this time, even bestowing the Imperial Sword upon Lord Yang Hao. He's devised a brilliant 'divide and conquer' strategy, with four armies advancing simultaneously to flatten Hetu Ala!"
A blind, almost morbid optimism spread through the population like a plague.
In official gazettes and folk tales, the Ming army was portrayed as celestial warriors, as if the Jianzhou Jurchens would be wiped out with a mere wave of their banners.
Influenced by this sentiment, a strange market trend emerged in Jinan Prefecture.
The prices of Liaodong specialties, which were originally in high demand due to the war, have begun to plummet.
Merchants generally believed that once the imperial court recovered Liaodong and trade routes reopened, the ginseng, sable fur, and deer antlers stockpiled outside the Great Wall would flood into the interior like a tidal wave. At that time, the current stockpiles would become worthless.
And so, the sell-off began.
The entrance to "Bai Cao Tang", the largest herbal medicine shop in Jinan Prefecture.
"Price drop! Price drop! Top-quality Liaodong ginseng, originally fifty taels per catty, is now only thirty taels! Hurry and buy, it will be even cheaper in a few days!"
Fan Fu stood in the crowd, watching the guy who was energetically hawking his wares, and felt a pang of heartache that made him tremble.
"Master...are we really crazy?" Fan Fu turned to look at Lu Yan beside him. "Everyone's selling off their stock, and we're secretly buying it up. In the last two weeks, we've already stockpiled fifty catties of ginseng and three hundred sable pelts. If the war ends, the prices will drop even further, and our several thousand taels of silver will be..."
"So what?" Lu Yan fiddled with two walnuts in his hand, his expression as calm as if he were watching a farce.
"It's all gone!" Fan Fu stamped his feet in frustration. "And what about all that white cloth and medicine? Everyone's busy buying red silk to make victory banners, who's going to buy white cloth? Our warehouse has two thousand bolts of white cloth piled up to the roof!"
Lu Yan ignored his anxiety and led him through the noisy crowd to the north city wall of Jinan Prefecture.
The wind was strong on the city wall, making their robes flutter loudly.
Lu Yan leaned against the cold city bricks, his gaze crossing the Yellow River and landing in the distant north.
In his view, the world was not the peaceful and prosperous place it was before him, but a huge, blood-stained blueprint.
"Fan Fu, you're a good steward, good at budgeting. But you don't understand the bigger picture."
Lu Yan's voice drifted in the wind, "What you hear is the clamor of people's hearts. What I see is the collapse of data."
He held up one finger and pointed north.
"The so-called 470,000-strong army actually numbered no more than 100,000. Of them, less than 60,000 were capable of fighting. The rest were farmers, thugs, and even prisoners pulled out of jail who had never held a knife before."
"The grain transport is so slow that one out of every ten bushels is lost. The soldiers at the front are only given half a pound of moldy black beans a day. There is a shortage of cotton-padded clothing, and many people are still wearing only thin clothes."
"The most fatal flaw was that the commander-in-chief, Yang Hao, was a civilian official who knew nothing about military affairs. Dividing the troops into four routes? In an era when communication relied on shouting and transportation relied on walking, launching a combined attack in the complex mountainous terrain against highly mobile cavalry... this was not a brilliant plan, it was suicide."
Lu Yan turned around and looked at Fan Fu, who had a terrified expression.
"You ask me why I bought white cloth?"
"Because of this battle, 100,000 people will not return."
"Of the four armies, only one will likely return. The rest will become ice sculptures on the Liaodong snowfields."
Lu Yan's tone was suffocatingly cold, "Once news of defeat gets back, what do you think will happen?"
Fan Fu swallowed hard, his mind blank: "What...what will happen?"
"panic."
Lu Yan uttered two words: "Extreme panic."
"The Liaodong defense line will collapse completely, and trade routes will be completely cut off. Those ginseng and sable furs that are now being sold off will become a thing of the past. In the next ten or even twenty years, no ginseng from Changbai Mountain will be seen in the interior of China."
"At that time, the five hundred catties of ginseng in our hands will not be medicinal materials, but life-saving miracle drugs, and hard currency that the powerful and wealthy are willing to exchange for with gold."
"As for white cloth and medicine..." Lu Yan sighed, a trace of pity flashing in his eyes, but it disappeared in an instant. "The front lines have collapsed, wounded soldiers have fled south, and countless people have died. The court needs to provide relief, and the people need to hold funerals. At that time, the price of white cloth will be ten times that of red silk."
"This is the information gap."
Lu Yan patted the mottled bricks on the city wall. "We're not doing business; we're shorting the fate of the Ming Dynasty. It's cruel, but we must earn this bloody profit. Because with this money, we can save more people in the chaos to come."
Just then, a fast horse suddenly galloped in from the north gate.
The rider on horseback had a command flag stuck in his back and was covered in blood. Before the horse had even come to a complete stop, he fell to the ground.
"Urgent message! Get out of the way!"
The commotion at the city gate instantly subsided. Everyone was speculating whether good news had arrived from the front lines.
Only Lu Yan knew that it wasn't good news.
That was the first drop of blood from Sarhu.
"Changying," Lu Yan called out without turning his head.
Zhao Changying, who had been standing not far away like a shadow, walked over, his right hand on the hilt of his sword, his expression grim.
"Close the position."
Lu Yan issued the order, his voice as cold as iron, "From now on, not a single ginseng or a single foot of white cloth will be sold. Tell Wang Dengku to keep his mouth shut. Anyone who dares to leak even a little bit of goods now will be the first ghost in this chaotic world."
"Wait another two weeks."
Lu Yan looked at the gradually darkening sky in the north, where a huge black storm seemed to be gathering.
"Wait for that gust of wind to blow. Wait until everyone is crying, that's when we'll close the net."
In March of the 47th year of the Wanli reign (1594), the Battle of Sarhu broke out.
In five days, three out of four armies were completely annihilated. More than three hundred civil and military officials died, and the elite troops were wiped out.
The day the news reached Jinan, the entire city was draped in mourning.
Lu Yan's warehouse, filled with white cloth and medicinal herbs, increased in value twentyfold overnight.
While the entire Ming Dynasty was weeping for the national tragedy, this dragon-snake lurking in the wilderness finally swallowed its first bite of flesh and blood, and began to molt and transform into a dragon.